Two Philippine culinary classics get a second life

RIDING on a renaissance of Filipino food (the first list of Michelin stars awarded to the Philippines is set for release later this month), Exploding Galaxies, the publishing house known for reviving lost classics, relaunched the books Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food by authors Doreen Fernandez and Edilberto Alegre, and Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, On Site, In the Pot by Ms. Fernandez.

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Ms. Fernandez’ name is still said with reverence in food circles, having made her mark through her long-running food column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and numerous books. Despite her passing in 2002, she is still remembered fondly by proteges, and in fact a food writing award seeking to emulate the magic created by the columnist is named after her.

As the late Clinton Palanca wrote in 2018 in an essay that serves as the foreword to the new edition of Sarap, “Doreen’s fame came from her power as a reviewer, and the legacy of her restaurant criticism overshadows the scholarship of Edilberto Alegre, whom she collaborated with on many of her books, not just on food. But his participation in their joint exploration of the many facets of Philippine food gives it an academic and scholarly weight that anchors Fernandez’ effervescent memories of her hometown in Silay or her metaphysical musings on Filipino identity as seen through food (though this is not meant in any way to diminish her own rigor as a researcher).”

Mr. Alegre, a BusinessWorld columnist for nearly 19 years until his passing in 2009, was a poet, writer, and researcher whose special concern was the shape and shaping of Philippine culture as revealed in language and literature, and as manifested in popular culture. He propounded the theory of indigenization based on his linguistic study of Filipino and developed a decolonized framework to better understand identity in the domain of food.

He wrote extensively — poems, stories, articles, columns, and books: Inumang Pinoy, Pinoy Forever: Essays on Culture and Language, Pinoy na Pinoy: Essays on National Culture, and Biyaheng Pinoy: A Mindanao Travelogue, released posthumously (he passed in 2009; related story: https://tinyurl.com/3zpsv4ay).